


Little Reminders

by cocoruu



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V
Genre: AU, Gen, Zarc headcanon, before everything went bad, the beginning of a beautiful friendship, well probably AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-16
Updated: 2017-10-16
Packaged: 2019-01-18 10:04:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12385956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cocoruu/pseuds/cocoruu
Summary: Just a night where Zarc comes home from the first day of a two day tournament and the day that follows.





	1. Reminder

**Author's Note:**

> Another old fic from Tumblr. I headcanon Zarc having Adult ADHD and wanted to write about the struggles that come with it.

  
Zarc opened the door to his small and cozy apartment room, the best he could afford really. It wasn’t exactly nice or well placed in the city, but to him it was home. Piles of papers and strewn about cards littered a majority the surfaces in his room. Clothes made a small barrier around his bed and his closet lie open from the morning since he couldn’t be bothered to remember to close it. His little kitchen area had an impressive stack of plates he always seemed to forget about the minute they were out of his sight. Earlier he had made a note to deal with them, but only on the way to the tournament that morning did he actually remember he needed to deal with them when he got home. Maybe he should put that in his alarms.

Zarc opened the screen of his duel disk to its home screen with the intent of doing something, but he hadn’t really the foggiest idea of why that even even had it open. He remembered he was supposed to do something with a function of his duel disk that wasn’t related to dueling. He shrugged and closed the screen whatever it was was victim to the realm of the forgotten.

He made his way over to his bed, where he plopped down face first into his bed. He was exhausted from the day’s events, being in a duel tournament was a tiring event, but one he would no doubt repeat the next day, after all he loved giving the crowd everything they wanted and his skills were more than good enough to participate in the final few brackets of the tournament. He rolled over onto his back staring up at the ceiling deep in thoughts about how to make his duels more entertaining when his disk roared to life playing a sound that never failed to get his attention.

He turned the screen on and entered the texting app to see who and what the massage was. “Huh when’d it get so late?” He said to himself, noting the drastic change in time. He mentally shrugged it off and turned his attention back at the message.

It was from this girl he met during the tournament who actually bothered with talking to him before the event started. She was nice enough and they hit it off just fine and even became friends in the ten minutes they had to prepare for their duels. They exchanged phone numbers, well really zarc just handed off his phone to her when she asked for his number so she’d put her in and see his number just fine so she could get his number for her plone. She joked about oddity of the gesture, Zarc had laughed in response but in his head he was screaming.

Before Zarc could think more of the awkward exchange his disk once again sounded off which brought his straight back to reality. Apparently 15 minutes had passed but Zarc could have sworn it had only felt like only a couple seconds had passed. Before he could get more distracted he opened the text thread from the girl.

‘Hey just a reminder make sure to eat tonight.’ which read last sent 15 minutes ago, it baffled Zarc on why she was reminding him to eat when she hadn’t talked with him for all that long.  
‘you got my message right?’ Was the newest sent text to him. He was still very much baffled by the girl’s, Ray’s, first message.

‘Yeah I did get it.’ He sent back and got up. He trudged over to the cupboard and just grabbed a cereal box and started eating out of it. This counted as a meal right? He got notified of a new text which he promptly checked.

‘Good to hear. Have you eaten yet?’ Again with that weird question, or was it normal to be asked that by people you just met earlier that day. Was it an ice breaker? Or was it just some weird habit Ray had.

‘eating cereal rn’ He replied and snacked on the sugary breakfast cereal. ‘y?’

Her reply came quickly enough. ‘You said you wanted me to remind you to get something to eat for dinner since you forgot to eat breakfast and i know you didn’t eat lunch.’ Wow someone actually cares about my well being? Was all that really came to him thoughts wise.

‘which cereal is not really a good choice of meal to have for the only thing you remember to eat.’ Oh great she’s starting to sound like a mother or something.

‘Too lazy to bother.’ it was the truth, he didn’t feel like going through all the steps even a microwave dinner had. Cereal required no motivation and tasted just fine to him.

‘ooookay i guess you do you, but don’t forget to get something to eat tomorrow morning before you get to the tournament.’Zarc couldn’t help but roll his eyes at the reminder, like he needed one, he’d definitely remember tomorrow on his own. ‘see you tomorrow, leave a little earlier too.’ Zarc groaned, she didn’t need to remind him of things to do tomorrow, he’d be fine.

He tossed the now empty box of cereal to into the trash and collapsed on his bed again. He turned off his light and tried to focus on his new goal for the night, getting a good night’s sleep.

A few seconds later he opened his eyes, his brain had gone into hyper drive and while he felt he was tired as he could possibly be, he just couldn’t manage the feat of sleep. It was impossible his thoughts were just going every which way and somehow made his way back to the memory of the awkward exchange of phone numbers. He dwelled on it criticizing every last bit of what he did and thought of how the girl (what was her name again?) probably thought he was the stupidest loser over the whole thing. She probably just was too nice to say anything or tell him she didn’t want to talk to him again. He’d blown the friendship all ready…probably.

Zarc groaned and shifted around on his bed trying to find some kind of way to possibly get to sleep faster. He checked the time to see two hours had passed since he had gotten into bed. The thoughts weren’t going away and zarc realized this fact rather quickly, so instead of staying in silence zarc opened up a movie on his disk propped the screen up by leaning it against the headboard of his bed. Soon after the movie started, Zarc had dozed off.

The next morning his alarm went off at full blast and only of the alarms second attempt to wake him did it actually succeed. He looked over the time in his barely awake state and his eyes widened. He quickly jumped out of bed and changed as fast as he could. After he got his deck box and bag he went out the the kitchen area for something. Something he needed to do…OH Right! He almost forgot his duel disk. He hopped over to his bed and picked up the electronic. That was everything he needed for sure, so out he went to catch his ride to the tournament, locking his door behind himself.

The girl he met yesterday waved at him when he arrived. “Morning, Zarc.” She seemed rather chipper in the morning, or maybe she was always chipper. Zarc really didn’t know which it was

“Morning.” Zarc yawned loudly and stretched.

He noticed she had started moving her mouth but anything coming out of it sound wise made no sense to him. Was she speaking in different language or something? “What are you saying?” Zarc asked while she was in the middle of whatever gibberish she was spouting.

Ray stopped and thought for a moment before she began again. She didn’t seem too bothered by the interruption, but Zarc knew he fucked everything up all over again. “I was trying to ask did you eat yet?” She smiled, Zarc chalked that right up to probably fake and given out of guilt.

Wait…. She just asked if he had eaten yet. SHIT that’s what he was forgetting! “I can’t say i have.”

The girl didn’t say anything she just took her bag off her shoulders and pulled out a pack of freshly made rice balls. “Here i brought extras just in case you forgot to eat again.” She held out the package to him with a smile.

Zarc wordlessly took them. “Thanks,uh sorry but what was your name again?” He really didn’t remember, which just added to reasons for Ray to abandon him in his mind.

“no, no, it’s fine. There’s no need to apologize.” Ray dismissed the unneeded apology. “It’s Ray.”

“Thanks Ray.” Zarc gave her a smile. Guess they were still friends after all.


	2. It Ended in a Tie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ray and Zarc hang out after the tournament.

 It had ended in a tie. The final duel of the tournament had been a spectacular one, one his dragons even enjoyed. It had been against the girl who had reached out to him, Ray, he reminded himself before the name escaped him. They met in the middle of the field to shake hands. Good sportsmanship was a key ingredient to the end of every tournament, or so Zarc had been taught from an early age.

“Thanks for the great duel.” Ray smiled giving him a nice friendly handshake, even her hand shakes proved she was a genuinely friendly sort of person.

“Yeah, lets duel again some time.” Zarc returned the handshake probably making the whole exchange awkward.

They both turned to the crowd and much like that of a curtain call, the two gave a bow with their hands still joined. It striked Zarc odd that they were doing this, the duels on tv never seemed end quite like this. He wasn’t complaining though, he did however gave her a look questioning the action.

Ray smiled. “I thought you might want to take a bow like an actor would.” What an odd reason to do something like that. “i mean this is something entertainers do. You did mention something about wanting to be one so why not start now.”

She did it for him? That was the weirdest reason to do something outlandish. He was oddly embarrassed by the gesture’s reasoning. “Thanks.” he forced himself to mutter quiet enough that the mics didn’t catch him talking.

They both bathed in the cheers and applause, or at least Zarc did. Ray softly nudged him to the announcer to the duel congratulating them both. They were both awarded half the prize money, though Zarc couldn’t say he really heard any of it and came back to attention with the money in hand and most people filing their way out.

“Earth to Zarc!” Ray had been waving a hand in front of his face since the end of the award ceremony. Zarc shook his head, shaking his mind back into focus to look at Ray. “The event ended a couple minutes ago.” She told him. With the boy now back on earth she didn’t need to hang around too much longer.

“I was wondering if you wanted to get a bit to eat with me.” But she didn’t need to hang around him anymore. Did she really want something to do with him?

“Sure that sounds great.” He answered immediately paying no mind to his thoughts until after speaking. Why would she invite him? She barely knew him.

They talked idly with each other on the way to the fast food place they both agreed on. The trip there really was a blur to him with any conversations they had completely gone from his mind, though he was very much used to that. It was a shame though that the trip was lost on him but Ray was laughing at probably something he said, honestly he was in the middle of laughing as well. You would think he’d remember.

“So what happened then? She inquired more about the story he’d been giving. The clueless look clued her in on his confusion. “You were telling me about the time when you were a kid and you took over your classroom.”

He was telling her that story? That wasn’t really a story he liked to tell,but he inwardly shrugged off the feeling even remembered where he was in telling it. “So the teacher, not happy at all with me commandeering his classroom had to start taking down the chairs but i was one step ahead of him and climbed up onto the lights.”

“No.” Ray gasped in disbelief. “You didn’t seriously hang up on the lights did you?”

“Of course i did! It drove the teacher nuts. Though then i kinda got stuck up there since it was kinda high up.” Zarc rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment. He remembered screaming and crying up a storm at how high up he was and how impossible it seemed to get down from there. He’d omit that detail of the story though. Zarc got the door to the fast food place and held it open for Ray.

“I hope you understood just how dangerous that little act was.” Ray patted his back in sympathy and went inside.

“Yeah i got an earful from the principle after they got me down from the light but oh man it was great to be on top of the world back then.” Zarc grinned at the embarrassing yet fond memory.

They got their food and found a place to sit. They both started eating and with a fry in hand. “So do you have any good stories?” Zarc asked curiously.

Ray finished her bite that she was in the middle of chewing when he asked. “Well nothing quite like the story you told but i might be able to think of something.” Ray ate a fry before continuing. “There was one time where i tried to swim in the koi pond. It was super hot one summer-” Ray began to tell her story, which Zarc would have loved to listen to with his fill attention but someone with the world’s loudest shoes walked it. With each step a new noise flooded Zarc’s attention. Of course he continued looking at Ray during her whole story but it was like he had muted Ray’s voice. He nodded along with the story, even though he could not follow and laughed when he could tell she was. He knew how to fake paying attention for the most part, hopefully he could dial back into the conversation before she noticed.

“And so my dad carried me home while lecturing me on the importance of respecting fish. The real kicker was that my mom had just finished dinner and it turned out to be fish sticks.” Ray laughed slightly remembering the face her Dad had when he saw the food her mom had made that night.

Zarc smiled. “Sounds like you have plenty of good stories honestly.”

Ray shook her head in disagreement. “Nothing i’ve done holds a candle to the story you told me.” She checked the time and got up. “I need to get going. It was great talking with you Zarc. Let’s hang out again sometime.” Ray waved headed for the door.

“See you later.” Zarc waved back and stayed seated finished the food left over. Did she notice or did she not even notice him accidentally checking out? He didn’t mean to do it honestly, he wanted to hear the whole thing. He downed his thoughts with fries, working to stop them in their tracks by focusing more on the food. It worked until he finished eating then the thoughts were back buzzing through his mind.

He threw away the trash he had and returned the tray. Then he headed out into the night to walk back to his apartment. All the while fighting off the stupid emotions hitting him like a truck, though what else was new.

His disk pinged with a message and Zarc snapped out of his funk long enough to open the message. Of course it was Ray messaging him, she seemed to be the only one doing that recently.

‘Had a fun time today. You free to hang out this weekend?’ Maybe she really could actually turn out to be a friend who’d stick around.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope this story was enjoyable. Thank you so much for reading.


End file.
